By Linda Bush, Ph.D.

The word for August is TOGETHER.

Once there was an old African king who was dying. As he neared the end of his days, he called his people to his side and gave a short sturdy stick to each of his many offspring, relatives, and followers.

“Break the stick,” he instructed them. With little effort, they all snapped their sticks in half.

“This is how it is when a soul is alone without anyone. They can be easily broken.”

The old king next gave each of his people another stick, and said, “This is how I would like for you to live after I pass. Put your sticks together in bundles of twos and threes. Now, break these bundles in half.”

The people surrounding the king followed his instructions and tried to break the bundles. But they failed.

“No one can break the sticks when there are two or more in a bundle,” said the king. “We are strong when we stand with another soul. When we are with another, we cannot be broken.”

__________

Although we work with people continuously, as learning professionals, it’s not uncommon to find ourselves feeling alone sometimes. After all, no case ever has to be made for the value of accounting, sales, or the essential (fill-in-the-blank) department in your organization.

You are not alone, however. TOGETHER we share in a great profession. It is through our efforts that people and organizations grow and improve their performance. Though we may be scattered, and occasionally isolated, we are many. And TOGETHER we are strong.
Remember that you have friends and colleagues at CIASTD.

• August 27 – Stories that Trainers Tell
• September 24 – Manufacturing Concept Learning Lab
• October 22 – Employee Loyalty and Engagement
• November 11 – Fall Education Conference (many colleagues TOGETHER)

A final thought:

Optimists are people who take the cold water thrown on their idea, heat it with enthusiasm, make steam, and push ahead.

--Unknown

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Facts Tell, Stories Sell: Make Your Training Stick with Powerful Stories
By Eric Denney, Facilitator Staff Member

Lori Silverman

Friday, August 27th
Join us for the upcoming August meeting to see author Lori Silverman present “Facts Tell, Stories Sell: Make Your Training Stick with Powerful Stories!” The presentation will run from 8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., with the usual cranberry juice cocktail networking session from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

Why settle for merely giving out information when we can help concepts stick through the strategic use of storytelling? Stories can help people recall and relate to concepts and ideas that trainers want to convey.

This session will teach participants how to compose and/or select stories to drive the point home. Participants will learn where to find and how to select good storytelling topics, as well as learn how to structure stories. By the end of the session, participants will have started to create stories of their own!

Lori Silverman is the owner of Partners for Progress (www.partnersforprogress.com), a management consulting firm, and is the founder of the website www.sayitwithastory.com. She is an accomplished speaker, having presented to thousands of participants, and appearing on over fifty radio and television shows to promote the benefits of purposeful storytelling. She is the co-author of Stories Trainers Tell: 55 Ready-to-Use Stories to Make Training Stick and Critical SHIFT: The future of Quality in Organizational Performance.

Cost for the program is $25 for members, $35 for non-members, and $15 for students. There is, however, an additional $5 fee for walk-in registrations. You can register at the CIASTD website by clicking here.

The meeting will be held at The Marott, located at 2625 N. Meridian Street, near the intersection of Fall Creek Blvd. and Meridian.

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July Meeting Recap

 

Empowered Learning

At the July CIASTD meeting, Stuart G. Shepley presented, “Empowered Learning!”

We all know that, in theory, learners will retain more of the training if they make discoveries on their own. We also know that, in practice, this can be extremely difficult for trainers to do. In an efficiency-driven business environment, it isn’t easy for trainers to take the risk and hand over the reigns of education to the learners.

Shepley took the risk as part of his presentation. The presentation engaged learners and allowed them to experience the concepts he was presenting. He began by asking participants at each table to come up with a list of qualities of high performing teams and high performing team members. After giving the groups time to discuss and to develop their lists, Shepley asked each table to report on what they had discovered.

There were many ideas and characteristics shared. Several groups mentioned the idea that high performing teams need to have a vision. Shepley did an informal survey, and asked how many people knew their own company’s or organization’s mission statement. Only one person raised her hand. Shepley pointed out that this represented a huge contradiction – while everyone acknowledge the need for high performing teams to have a clear vision, most of those attending could not articulate the vision of their own companies.

He gave each group an assignment. Each table was given approximately 15 different drinking straws and a meter (slightly more than a yard) of masking tape. The straws were all different – different colors, shapes, sizes, etc. The groups were told to use the straws and tape to construct a structure that represented the high performing qualities that they had identified in the earlier discussion.

The energy created by the assignment was fantastic. People became engaged and the variety of resulting structures was intriguing. The resulting structures were metaphors of the principles of high performing teams. During the debrief following the exercise, Shepley pointed out how people had learned better through experience – by doing – than they would have if he had simply lectured about the topic.

He concluded by pointing out what we had learned through experience. He explained the concept of Appreciative Inquiry. Four phases: discover, dream, design and delivery. “Every day, when we get out of bed, we decide what mood we want to be in.” Shepley says that we want to blame our decisions and our choices on everyone else. This applies to our organizations. We choose what we want to focus on. We choose how we want to respond to what is happening.

Stuart G. Shepley is an Associate Director at Indiana University’s Bradford Woods Center. He holds Bachelor’s degrees in both Management Studies and Counseling/Social Work, and a Master’s degree in Therapeutic Recreation. Mr. Shepley is an experienced teacher, facilitator, administrator, and consultant; and has been with the Bradford Woods Center since 1985. His clients say he is one of the best facilitators in Indiana.

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Joyce Robinson
Learning Facilitator
By Fred Oaks, Facilitator Staff Member
[A regular feature of The Facilitator, Member Profile introduces a member of CIASTD randomly selected at a sponsored event. The idea is to help everyone get to know each other better.]

Contentment is a rare commodity in today’s workplace. Joyce Robinson has found it, however, as a learning and development facilitator for RCI. She loves her work, though she still has dreams to pursue.

Joyce’s vocational journey has had twists and turns. She graduated from DePauw University with a degree in Communication Arts and Sciences, and then served in the Army as a deejay in Germany. Later she worked as an alcohol and drug probation officer. Eleven years ago she began work with RCI, and accepted her present position in learning and development two and a half years ago. She joined CIASTD last year.

“I am still in an infant stage as a trainer,” she says modestly, “Especially compared to some of the wonderful people in CIASTD.” But as a learning and development specialist, Joyce is excited by challenges and opportunities for personal growth.

“In this position, I facilitate new hire training. We offer a five-week course, which we are constantly revising.” Coursework is based upon Kirkpatrick’s framework. “Each course involves 10-15 people who must develop expertise in both inbound and outbound calls.” The business of RCI is time-share exchange, and these calls are its lifeblood.

Recently a new supervisor asked Joyce to project herself 5 years into the future. What job would be ideal? “I told him that I see myself right here, in my present position,” she reports. “I love what I do – I have found my niche.” But don’t confuse this contentment with complacency. Joyce continues to learn and grow. She was recently certified by Achieve Global in their Leadership for Results program. This enables Joyce to lead training for certification on topics like giving and receiving feedback and other skills.

Joyce enjoys reading Dickens and a new magazine called The Week. Her favorite website is www.mentalfloss.com. She takes maternal pride in her two daughters. One is a photographer in the Air Force based in Denver, and the other begins collegiate training in radiology this fall.

Travel is RCI’s business, and Joyce occasionally has opportunity to travel to corporate training centers around the world. Mexico City is one of her favorites. Her dream vacation would take her across the Atlantic. “I’d love to spend two weeks in Scotland,” she says, “Just listening to the bagpipes and sitting on the moor.” Perhaps she’ll also be seen at St. Andrews. She took up golf only recently, but she knows how to learn!

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The Greater Indianapolis chapter of the International Coach Federation (ICF) is holding a half-day special event for training and human resource professionals, business leaders, small business owners, and coaches on September 30. The event will take place from 8:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at the Marten House Hotel and Lilly Conference Center. The event will feature an overview on coaching, its ROI to individuals and businesses, ways to increase your coaching skills, two guest speakers, six breakout sessions, and free opportunities for participants to experience coaching for themselves.

Guest speakers include Scott Read, Senior Manager with Proctor and Gamble, who will share how coaching fits into leadership development efforts at Proctor and Gamble. Sandy Vilas, CEO of Coach U and Corporate Coach U, will be giving a presentation geared specifically to coaches (and those interested in coaching) from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m., following the event.

During the breakout sessions, participants can experience coaching from a variety of perspectives. Breakout sessions will be repeated, so attendees can participate in two of the six breakout sessions. Breakout session titles include Issues & Answers for Leadership Development, Healthy Relationships: The Key to Employee Engagement & Personal Fulfillment, and Leadership in Action: The Art of Getting Things Done.

The cost for the event is $79 for registrations postmarked by August 27. After August 27, registration is $89. As a special offer to CIASTD members, the registration fee will remain $79 for those CIASTD members who mail in their registrations, even after the early bird deadline. Simply write “CIASTD” on the memo line of your check.

To register for event or for more information, you can visit the Greater Indianapolis Chapter of the International Coach Federation web site at www.icfindy.com or contact Dan Johnson, ICF Indy Chapter President, at (317) 791-0570.

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Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success
By John C. Maxwell
2004, Time Warner Book Group, New York

Review by Jay McNaught
[Periodically, in The Facilitator, we try to review books that might be of interest to those involved in training and development.]

If you teach time management, or if you could stand to improve your own time management skills, this book will add to your insights. For John Maxwell fans, this is the latest and greatest from the extremely prolific writer. In my mind, the beauty of Maxwell is that he is able to take tried-and-true concepts and repackage them in such a way that they become fresh and compelling.

The premise of the book is that you build tomorrow by what you do today. Maxwell urges us to make today a masterpiece. He describes his “daily dozen” - twelve areas that we should practice every day to grow future success. This book is full of great quotes. There is a section where he quotes the writing of Oscar Wilde, who experienced tremendous success early in life, but died bankrupt at the age of 46. He didn’t take care of “today” and let the passions of the moment rule his life. Quotes include:

• “Yesterday ended last night.”
• “When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.” – John Wooden
• “The 57 rules of success:
  #1 Deliver the goods
  #2 The other 56 don’t matter”
• “Successful people make right decisions early and manage those decisions daily.” – Maxwell

This is an awesome motivational book. Reading it inspired me to connect totally with the present and to make each day count.

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